Maintaining Healthy Habits

Step One: Choose Your Activity Wisely
The first step in creating a healthy new habit that will be a long-term staple in your lifestyle is to choose an activity that fits well with who you are and how you live. If you don’t, you may find that you’re working against personality and lifestyle factors that are two ingrained to change, and your new healthy habit never quite takes root. When choosing a new practice, keep in mind factors like your strengths, your schedule and lifestyle, and the complexity of the new habit, as well as your current stress level and time available, and find an activity that fits well with all of these variables. For a more in-depth look at these factors, take The Stress Reliever Personality Test, which will assess which stress relievers would work best for your lifestyle and personality, and provide you with a list.

Step Two: Build The New Habit into Your Schedule

If you don’t have a specific plan for sticking with a new habit, it’s all too easy to find that your already-packed schedule won’t allow you the ‘spare time’ necessary to do anything new very often. You’ll be too busy, too tired, or will easily find another excuse to let inertia snuff out your best intentions. That’s why a crucial next step is for you to find a specific time in your schedule that’s allotted just for your new stress management activity.

Whether it’s ‘every morning before my shower’, 'during my lunch break', or ‘weeknights at 8’, you need to have a time that you know is set aside for your chosen activity so that you won’t need to continually find a reason to practice your stress relief program.

Many people find it easiest to do things in the morning before they start their day, or at night before bed. Others find snatches of time during the day.

Step Three: Enlist Support

You’ll find much more success if you have others who are helping you along the way. Not only will they give you support when you need it, but you’ll also have them to answer to if you feel like skipping your new stress management practice, and this will make it harder for you to make excuses and quit. One way to get support that is growing in popularity is to hire a personal coach. However, you can also get support by having a buddy start with you, or joining a class where they practice your chosen activity (like a yoga class, for example, or a meditation class). If you’d rather do it alone, you can always ask a friend to keep you accountable for the first few weeks, or keep a journal where you record your activity and success every day or at the end of each week. Whatever route you choose, it helps to have someone to keep you accountable, at least in the beginning.

Step Four: Using Goals and Rewards

Although the great feelings you get from stress management can be their own reward, in starting any new habit, it helps to also have some more tangible rewards. (Think of how teachers use stars and other tokens to encourage good behavior, or how you can train pets to do just about anything with a few small treats; none of us is above the power of a few good rewards, either.) The trick is to reward yourself for your first few steps until your new healthy habit becomes ingrained into your way of life. (The first month or so is especially important, as that’s the approximate time it takes for a new behavior to become a habit.) The rewards you give yourself are a personal choice, and you probably know what would be the best incentive for your own success, but I recommend something small and enjoyable. For example, when I first started going to the gym, I would reward every five gym visits with a new piece of workout clothing—that way I’d feel like I ‘earned’ the new outfits, and I’d also get the payoff of looking better in the dressing room each time I found myself there. Others I know have given themselves pedometers (to reward regular walking), soothing music (to reward and use with yoga practice) or beautiful new pens (to reward journal writing).

Step Five: Check in With Yourself To be Sure You Are On The Right Track

As you go, pay special attention to how you feel. Does your new practice seem to fit with your lifestyle? Is it easy to maintain your new habit, or do you think you may need to try something new? If you find that you haven’t kept up with your new plans as you’ve hoped, rather than beating yourself up over it, congratulate yourself for noticing that you need a change of plans—it’s the first step in building a new plan that will better serve you! And, if you’re trudging along with it, but have decided that you really may need to try something else instead, at least you know what doesn’t work for you as well, and now you can try something else that you may end up loving. All in all, it’s best to learn several new stress relievers and stress management techniques anyway, to have a few options available for reducing stress in your body and mind.

http://stress.about.com/od/lowstresslifestyle/ss/healthy_habits_5.htm

How to maintain a healthy lifestyle

With the demanding schedules students have these days it can be particularly hard to find a balance between school, work and leading a healthy lifestyle.Having a healthy lifestyle leads to the prevention of diseases as well as keeping students in top physical and mental shape. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is the easiest thing to do, provided you know the right tricks. Excess stress jolts your mind and you will see its spill-over effect in every aspect of your life. The key to counter daily pressures and stress is to lead a healthy life and develop healthy habits. You will find your productivity visibly enhanced and your mental framework quite positive, if you follow a healthy way of life

Keep a balanced diet

According to www.americanheart.org, having good eating habits can reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke, and exercising on a regular basis is not only good for keeping off those unwanted pounds, but is also good for your heart and brain.There are many good ways to lead a healthy lifestyle. The three hardest and most important ways are through a balanced diet, exercising regularly and getting the recommended eight hours of sleep.

According to www.webmd.com, a healthy diet consists of foods high in lean protein, such as fish, chicken, eggs, beans and dairy products. Fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals such as calcium, iron, and potassium are also important to keep your diet balanced.Avoid diets that say to steer clear of consuming fats and carbohydrates in fear they may make the pounds pile on. There are certain types of fats and carbohydrates that are actually healthy for you.For example, according to www.medecinenet.com, avocados, which pack in a good deal of fat, provide phytochemicals as well as over 25 essential nutrients, such as fiber, potassium, vitamin B and E, and folic acid.It has also been said that avocados are good for the skin and hair. Other healthy fats to make note of are extra virgin olive oil and omega 3 fatty acids (found in fish such as salmon). Just make sure to limit the amount of fat eaten, because eating too much of anything is never beneficial for a healthy diet. In regards to carbohydrates, avoiding them completely is unhealthy even though weight-loss may occur briefly, the weight will be re-gained almost immediately. According to www.wideworldoffood.com, "Carbohydrates are one of the three essential macronutrients, and are vital to maintaining your body's health and nutrition. Carbohydrates fuel our brains and central nervous system, and are of paramount importance for neonatal development."

It is important to choose complex carbohydrates when choosing bread, cereal, or pasta. Look for foods that advertise whole grains instead of white bread or even whole wheat.

Get the exercise you need

Another important part of living a healthy lifestyle is getting exercise and staying active. www.clevelandclinic.org suggests 30 to 60 minutes of exercise at least three times a week in order to see results. Here are a few easy tips to leading an active lifestyle.Set aside specific days and times for exercise. The purpose of this is to make exercise an important part of your schedule.Change it up. Exercise doesn't have to get boring. Try jogging one day, speed walking the next, or hit up your local gym and see what fun classes are offered. Maybe a relaxing yoga class or an intense cycle class will be just what you're looking for.

If a busy schedule is getting in the way of the active lifestyle you are trying to achieve, try to take the stairs and walk whenever possible. Exercise adds up throughout the day and every little bit counts.Student Lauren Fitzpatrick has been trying to fit daily exercise into her busy routine. "Even though I am really busy with school and work, finding an extra 30 minutes or an hour a day to exercise gives me more energy and makes me feel so much better about myself. The more I do it the easier it gets," Fitzpatrick said.

According to www.mayoclinic.com, exercise not only helps manage your weight, it helps combat chronic diseases, strengthens your heart and lungs, promotes better sleep, and help your sex life. "Regular exercise can leave you feeling energized and looking better, which may have a positive effect on your sex life. There's more to it than that. Exercise improves your circulation, which can lead to more satisfying sex. And men who exercise regularly are less likely to have problems with erectile dysfunction than are men who don't exercise" According to www.mayoclinic.com.

Get your eight hours

Sleep is a crucial aspect to leading a healthy lifestyle."When I don't get enough sleep I feel like I can't function the next day. I can't concentrate on anything and I feel like a zombie. I also almost always get sick when I don't get enough sleep," said Palomar student Elizabeth Hansen. According to www.sleepfoundation.org, sleep is essential for a person's health and well being, and there is no "magic" number for hours of sleep everyone needs per night. However, eight hours per night is the recommended amount for adults. Here are some tips from www.apa.org to help with sleep problems many people face.

Exercise Regularly

Regular exercise is as important as healthy food habits, to maintain a competent lifestyle. Some people eat well, but avoid working out. The benefits of exercise have been proved time and again and don't need any further advocacy. If your working schedule is too hectic to allow you any time for exercise, try to find other ways of working out. For instance, shun the elevators and climb up the stairs to your office. You can also walk till the market, rather than rolling out your car every time you want to buy something.

Take Proper Sleep

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle will become impossible with a lack of proper sleep. Never compromise with your sleeping hours, under any circumstance. Less sleep hampers your efficiency by making you feel lazy and inactive. Try to establish a fixed bed time routine and follow it religiously. You should get up in the morning feeling fresh and active, raring to go!

Take Time-Outs And Relax

No matter how busy you keep, take a breather once in a while, to rejuvenate your mind and recharge your batteries. Life, especially in the present times, is too demanding and challenging, and as such, it becomes important to relax. Chill out to de-stress yourself. To maintain a lifestyle that is healthy, it is important to feel happy and stress-free. You can also go on occasional vacations, to dump all your worries aside and get on with the fun in life.

Organize Your Activities

In the run up to a healthy lifestyle, we often fail to prioritize, rather organize our activities well. You may want to incorporate some form of exercise in your daily routine, but end up completing some other important task in your scheduled workout time. Always remember that an organized lifestyle is a competent lifestyle. Systematize your tasks and get rid of the habit to procrastinate. There is nothing like a well-arranged day, to live a healthy life.

PPSMI

Hi everyone...i'm nadiya..Actually, i have a suggestion topic to discuss on this blog..i would like to discuss about PPSMI..nowadays,people always talk about this issue..Do you know what is PPSMI?PPSMI is meant for students to be more than ready when they venture into a "bigger world" of mathematic and science...In my opinion,the way it is currently excuted is still not thoroughly and critically devised..Apart from that,PPSMI could help students,just like i said earlier,to be more competent in the language use..It is like hitting two birds with a stone..English class is to teach the forms of the language but thru PPSMI the forms of the language could be interpreted into how the form of the language function..